I’m back after a week with a sudden road trip to Tucson, Ariz., to see my big sister through major abdominal surgery. The storm that blew in from California took her DSL line out with it, and so I wasn’t able to offer up “Right Rose, Right Place” at the right time last Thursday.

Tucson looked green for a desert, and being a frequent visitor, I knew chances were good that the rainy-day forecasts were not what they seemed. What passes for rain in Tucson is a morning drizzle and then low clouds that briefly hug the mountains before disappearing, chased away by gentle sun and birdsong. In my sister’s back yard, one foolish hollyhock was bravely flinging girlish blooms at winter, and an intoxicating lavender-colored rose was holding onto a single tight bloom right outside her front door.

To me, roses have always stood for generous, loving welcome. And that’s my big sister all over. Brash and bossy and quite the party girl in her day, she now owns a small acreage that she shares with two rescued dogs and a rescued BLM mustang and a rescued quarterhorse mare that someone brought to the feed store to give away because they couldn’t afford to feed it anymore. Oh, and a rescued cowboy and his two horses. And his elderly mother. And the cowboy’s friend who was staying for a while just before I came. And whatever nieces, nephews, cousins or other unrelated waifs and strays happen to stumble in.

Susan Clotfelter has always played in the dirt, but got dragged into gardening as an obsession when she reclaimed her hell corner: a weed-infested patch of clay inhabited by one tough, lonely lilac and a thicket of weeds. Along with training as a Colorado State University Extension Master Gardener volunteer, she dug deeper with beds of herbs and lettuce at her home and rows of vegetables wherever she could borrow land. She writes for The Denver Post and other publications and appears on community radio.

Julie's passion for gardening began in spring of 2000 when she bought a fixer-upper in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood, and realized that the landsape was in desperate need of some TLC. During the drought of 2003, she decided to give up on bluegrass and xeriscape her front yard. She wrote about the journey in the Rocky Mountain News, in a series called Mud, Sweat & Tears: A Xeriscape story. Julie is an avid veggie gardener as well as a seasoned water gardener.